#even if I don't like any version of it that cuts out xue yang

[veliseraptor]

What are some MDZS characters that never/barely interact that you think would be interesting to throw in a room together?

another "I'm not looking at the date stamp on when this was sent, I don't want to know"

hmmm I mean there's all kinds of characters who don't interact much on page that I'd love to see interact more and most of them are with Xue Yang because I'm the person that I am. but let's see here, to give a more comprehensive list of some characters it could be fun to lock in a room and see what happens (or just wish we saw more of their dynamic)

Xue Yang & Jin Guangyao. I mean, I've gone on plenty of record about this/written a middling amount of fic, but I just love their relationship so much. I love that while they have some things in common their approaches to life are almost diametrically opposed, specifically the way that they react to learning that people/society doesn't give a shit about them - Xue Yang chose to reject everybody and everything else as fundamentally worthless, and Jin Guangyao chose to try to find a way to prove people wrong about his worth.

I also love the dynamic in the Villainous Friends extra specifically where Xue Yang is in several places clearly trying to get a rise out of Jin Guangyao by being extra edgy and Jin Guangyao just meets it with perfect equanimity ("no thank you, I would not care for some tongue tea") rather than freaking out about it. I don't think that's so much because he's actually that chill about the concept of tongue tea, just that he knows that giving Xue Yang the reaction he's looking for isn't a good idea. I like in that in general Jin Guangyao seems to...not respect Xue Yang, exactly, but he treats him well, and with a level of etiquette that I doubt many other people do. Will never get over "Xue-gongzi" specifically.

Also how defensive Xue Yang is of Jin Guangyao in that extra even if he's also needling him the whole time. He's not tactful. He will cut out a guy's tongue when he insults Jin Guangyao in front of him, though. He's so ready to murder Jin Guangshan, you guys.

It's just this...very particular relationship they have with each other that they don't have with anybody else. And I personally like the version where, in the end, Jin Guangyao's need to prove himself, his need to survive within the society that still, in the end, rejects him, trumps his affection for Xue Yang, and that I think on some level Xue Yang gets that and only sort of holds it against him.

Jin Guangyao & Jiang Cheng. For a pair of characters that doesn't involve Xue Yang! I feel like for all people talk about parallels/foils between Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian (present for sure), I'm interested in the parallels/foils between Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng, and the way that they're both far more politically/socially oriented than Wei Wuxian ever is, even as a gulf of status and origin separates them and their perspectives from each other. And at the same time I feel like I can see them agreeing on a lot of things. Not necessarily philosophically, but in administrative terms specifically. I think there's something definitely to be said for the way that Jin Ling relates to both of his uncles speaking to the way they relate to each other. That Jin Ling views them both as the most powerful cultivators ever speaks to at least an amicable partnership if not anything warmer than that - and I don't necessarily think it would be any warmer than that. But I can see mutual respect, at least to a certain extent. Not to the point that Jiang Cheng would expend political capital sticking his neck out for Jin Guangyao, but enough that he's not wiping his hands after taking tea from him either (so to speak). And I would like to know more about how that relationship develops between Wei Wuxian's death and resurrection, facilitated by Jin Ling and then their interactions as respective sect leaders.

Maybe I just want to see two people with control issues bond about their control issues, so sue me.

Xue Yang & Mo Xuanyu. I know people ship these guys and I very much don't but I do want to know more about their relationship as at least people who were in the Jin Sect at the same time and both somewhat knowledgeable about demonic cultivation. I don't know that we get confirmation one way or another how much or what Mo Xuanyu knew about the research projects Xue Yang was doing, at least in the novel, but I just. I like to imagine Xue Yang finding Mo Xuanyu interesting in the "I want to study you like a bug" kind of way. He's weird and a little unstable and fucking around with dark powers. Xue Yang is fond of him and also kind of treating him like a science experiment. Jury's out on how aware Mo Xuanyu is of this dynamic vs. whether he just thinks this is what friendship is like (he hasn't had a lot of friends).

I think Xue Yang would find the whole "sacrificed his soul in order to resurrect Wei Wuxian to get vengeance on his family" thing absolutely hilarious, though. and would also 100% be like "dude why didn't you just kill them yourself" about it.

Xue Yang & Jin Ling. I wrote one fic for this a long time ago and dipped into it a liiiittle bit in the Jiang Yanli/Xue Yang fic but as far as I know nobody else has taken advantage of the overlap between Jin Ling's childhood and Xue Yang's Jin Sect stint. Jin Ling is hardly going to be exposed to lower level disciples of questionable intentions. not intentionally, anyway.

But the quickest way to get Xue Yang interested in a thing is to tell him its off limits. All that has to happen is one casual remark around Jin Guangyao that results in a horrified O__O face, momentarily, and Xue Yang is already making plans for his unsanctioned babysitting experience. it's gonna be great.

this just also opens up such opportunities once Yi City rolls around for Jin Ling's week to get even more surreal, which sounds fun to me.

yes all of these but one are for xue yang, so sue me. I am who I am.

though I would enjoy seeing Xiao Xingchen interact with just about anyone in a political setting. speaking of things that would be really funny.

#conversating #anonymous #the sad queer cultivators show #xue yang #jin ling #jiang cheng #jin guangyao #aggressively headcanons

[wombathos]

"but like... your other man is already a fierce corpse xxc" i was wondering, is there anything that confirms sl & xxc rs as romantic? Otherwise I'm always confused why ppl can't talk about xy & xxc without mentioning somehow romantic songxiao it's whether a fic, a meme, a joke, a serious analysis, etc...& it's not like it's not interesting & as if idk that these chara are p connected but it does baffles me that it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to find xuexiao that doesn't imply songxiao (&kinda sad lol)

to be clear I’m generally pro just xuexiao! and I do get this complaint. but also in the context of that specific post I think that xxc’s reasons for killing himself were canonically... uh, pretty closely tied to song lan dying (and xxc being the one to kill him) - and sentient fierce corpse song lan still being around could make a difference to xiao xingchen. and yeah, I guess I do personally read sl and xxc as having.... some kind of an intimate bond - I’m hesitant to label it romantic or anything so definitive, but they clearly care about each other a lot. so if xxc knew that sl wasn’t lost to him entirely, maybe they could all work something out (or so I’d hope, sadly it was a bit unlikely). beyond that, canon doesn’t really ‘confirm’ any ship apart from,, wangxian and anyone else who actually got married but I don’t... really care about confirming ships in general, sorry. I also don’t really like songxiao without xue yang in the mix but I do like it as a backdrop to xue yang and xxc’s relationship... I guess because I think jealousy and tragedy are fun?? but also I doubt that answer is representative of fandom as a whole and apart from that I can only really speculate

I totally get how common fandom interpretations can become grating through too much repetition, especially when they’re just casual gags that are treated like common wisdom. but I didn’t label either the xuexiao or songxiao axis as romantic or otherwise in that post or in the tags. mostly I implied that xxc cares about both of them, whatever form that takes. (and as it happens that tension is one of the things I enjoy a lot about xuexiao as a ship - xue yang deliberately targeting song lan to get at xxc, xue yang’s perspective on xxc’s whole ‘giving song lan his eyes’ thing, just how annoyed xue yang was when song lan showed up and ruined the peace. I don’t think that shared history is sad to me in that sense - or maybe a little for xue yang but I like that - because xxc having intense feelings about someone in the past/present doesn’t detract from the ship. I don’t think I’d ever want to cut song lan out of that. but on the flip side I would also be profoundly disinterested in any exploration of song lan and xiao xingchen’s dynamic that ignored xue yang. I just like triangles tbh.) I guess I don’t know what to tell you anon, I ship xuexiao and songxuexiao about equally and songxiao is honestly a bit of a notp for me at this point, so I’m not sure if I’m the right person to take this up with

#sorry I don't want to be rude lol #because I know first hand how annoying and frustrating common fandom takes can get #but also I guess in this case I agree with the general idea that there was *something* between sl and xxc? #even if I don't like any version of it that cuts out xue yang #leela replies #anonymous #demonic cultivation for pros #I guess you could hash out whether 'other man' implies romantic attachment (it didn't to me) but rn I need sLeep #also i just like fucked up triangles #suicide mention cw

[xiyao-feels]

Finally got around to writing down some thoughts on the differences between Empathy and the original—per scene and then a general reflection.

Episode 10

(episode 10 differences)

Going through this chronologically, our first comparison is the captain encounter. Honestly I think NMJ was straight-up inventing most of this—even aside from the sheer absurdity of MY, what, smuggling XY out of prison, bringing him into the middle of everything (he runs into the Captain and friend AND WWX!), XY…just going back into prison…well, anyway, putting all that aside—the Captain's questions here seem like NMJ's preoccupations, not the Captain's. The Captain is hugely contemptuous of MY, but he's not, like, obsessed with his innermost heart, you know? "You're lying! I just saw that. You were talking. Tell me honestly. What's your ulterior motive?"—that's NMJ, not the Captain at all. Plus there's the way the Captain grabs MY basically the exact same way NMJ does. 

Next up there's MY telling NHS he's going to go check on XY—minor phrasing differences aside, one thing that's interesting is we don't get all of MY's reaction/decision before he tells NHS in Empathy, just the tail end:

Ahhhh, now, the bit where NMJ sees MY stab the captain! You can see here the beginning of a pattern of Empathy erasing the Wen. MY throwing himself in front of the blade to save NMJ is removed, of course, but so is NMJ fighting WZL, as he was before going to the prison in episode 10; in the Empathy he's just kind of standing there. And then sees MY, uh, creepily pick up a sword??? And follows him??? Instead of hearing that XY's escaped and running to the prison because of that, which is of course what happened in episode 10. (So XY is erased some in this scene, too; even when it comes to MY's excuses, he says It wasn't me, but we don't get to 'Xue Yang killed him', as we do in the original.)

Some other points of interest here… Of course the expression NMJ sees on MY as MY kills the captain is only shown in Empathy. Interestingly, also, while MY is quite clearly terrified at NMJ's approach in both, in episode 10 it's presented immediately, while in the Empathy he has a beat before he starts reacting that way.

The last scene—NMJ confronting MY and kicking him out of Qinghe. In the Empathy, we start with MY having been thrown onto the floor, rolling—but this isn't there in episode 10, and to be honest I think it probably didn't actually happen. First, while I can see NMJ throwing MY onto the floor, I don't actually think he'd throw him quite that hard at this point in time? And it's also got a lot of visual echoes of JGY rolling down the stairs; I think he's projecting backwards. Of course, it still takes MY longer to recover in episode 10; Empathy consistently minimizes the physical harm done to MY.

So the conversation is interesting because it's really just two different conversations in the Empathy vs episode 10. In episode 10, MY leads with the Captain's abuse of him, and he's clear that it's habitual, ongoing, long-term. In Empathy, he leads with the Captain releasing XY, /adds in/ that the Captain wanted to kill him (that's not there in episode 10!), and absolutely skips over and minimizes the abuse: the beatings aren't mentioned, the credit-stealing isn't mentioned, the insulting and humiliating… even the 'Every time' is removed from before the 'he humiliated my mother', making it seem like this was a one-off provocation instead of habitual. NMJ's somewhat unhinged rant about MY's motives, including the would you have killed everyone at the cave if I hadn't helped you, is also Empathy-only (and then when MY starts to reply NMJ is like, Don't lie to me! and MY shuts up, suggesting perhaps that a denial would have been lying, which may be part of why people think this is a remotely reasonable assertion).

Some other interesting things—in episode 10, we see NMJ lift his sabre and then lower it, unable to go through with it; in Empathy, we don't see that at all—in general I think there's less of a sense that he's struggling with his decision, in Empathy, it's more just like He Is Doing The Righteous Justice. Fascinatingly we also don't see him put Baxia away in Empathy—I think he must because we see a scene where he already had, in episode 10, but we don't actually see it. We also don't see MY, injured, get up and thank NMJ and walk out, or indeed NMJ's conflicted gaze after him; the scene cuts off too soon.

Episode 22

(episode 22 differences)

There's only one scene for episode 22: the WRH, NMJ, and MY scene, inside Sun Palace. Right off the bat, we have the Wen erasure again; the episode 22 scene starts with WRH directly addressing NMJ and tormenting him and his Nie cultivators, whereas the Empathy one only starts when MY walks in. (Although interestingly MY addresses WRH as xiandu, while he doesn't seem to say anything with his bow in episode 22).

This one is an interesting scene because there's relatively little overlap? In the episode 10 scenes, you mostly saw different versions of the same events; in this one there's some of that, but there are also large chunks of time that are only in episode 22 or only in Empathy. Most of the MY-interacting-with-NMJ is only in Empathy, including, yes, the damn sabre touch. But we do have the beginning of MY talking to NMJ in both. MY's expression is different in Episode 22 vs Empathy—it's a little hard to capture in a still, but it's a lot more, mmm, simpering-mockery in the Empathy version?

Ah, one detail that's interesting—so, in CQL—which is to say in Empathy because we don't see this sequence at all in Episode 22—when that Nie cultivator calls the place 'a den of Wen' he uses 温/温氏, for Wen, and then when people are insulting MY in this scene they're using 走狗. But in MDZS all of those are actually 温狗, Wen-dog. Which is definitely more directly disrespectful to WRH than the 走狗 insults, but I feel like in general CQL doesn't use 温狗 a lot, while in MDZS it's all over the place—so while it's an interesting detail I'm not sure it's suggestive for Empathy in particular. Hmmm.

We return to things being shown in both Empathy and Episode 22 with NMJ shoving MY back. In Empathy, we only see MY stagger a little, while in episode 22 it's quite considerable—again, Empathy's tendency to minimize the physical damage MY suffers.

And then MY kicks NMJ in return! Okay this is actually fascinating, because in Empathy, it looks like this totally wipes NMJ out, and the scene stops here. But that isn't at all what happened! He's knocked onto his back, yes, BUT he recovers and comes up and shoves MY hard enough he goes flying: 

He gets up and goes to attack MY, and would probably have killed him if WRH hadn't interfered. Which, don't get me wrong, is entirely reasonable of him given his understanding of the situation but it is not at all the impression you'd get from Empathy. If anything NMJ's collapse in the Empathy after MY kicks him looks like the collapse he has after WRH finishes with him, in episode 22. And MY saying How dare you be so rude in front of Clan Leader Wen when he kicks NMJ is also removed—the whole sequence here is really another example of the removal of the Wen from the Empathy scenes. 

Incidentally, MY didn't actually kill all the Nie cultivators, in this scene. If you look while MY is flying back, at least one of them is still alive:

And then you can see all four are dead while NMJ's attacking WRH:

But MY has been on the floor recovering from NMJ's attack, so he definitely didn't kill the at least one and quite probably two who are still alive.

WRH asks MY if NMJ killed Wen Xu question; you have MY staying quite noticeably silent, which I think is still meant to be understood as MY saving NMJ's life. I guess they changed it because the MDZS version really doesn't work with the flow of events as happens in CQL? For the record, in MDZS MY answers yes, but then immediately suggests that they torture him instead of killing him immediately, and then once WRH isn't set on killing him immediately, kills WRH on the spot and starts lugging NMJ's unconscious body out of there. So there's no WWX for distraction, and Sunshot's army definitely isn't right outside, there's only LXC he sent a message to and who hasn't quite shown up yet—so in MDZS he's taking a bigger risk, and more unambiguously saving NMJ's life and winning them the war. Which is not, to be clear, to in any way minimize CQL MY's astonishing bravery and achievements.

Episode 23

(episode 23 differences)

So in both we start with LXC holding NMJ and looking down at him. In episode 23, when NMJ sees MY, we see LXC see and notice his reaction and /then/ look over at MY in concern, whereas in Empathy we don't get that moment—it just goes to both of them looking at MY.

NMJ demands his sabre back, and in both MY complies, though in the Empathy one he takes a beat longer and looks more worried about it. In the original, MY also has "Let me explain" which is dropped from the Empathy.

In both we have NMJ attacking MY with Baxia, and trying to get past Shuoyue—in the Empathy it's a bit shorter, though, and we also lose LXC asking NMJ what he's doing this for. I think that goes with cutting LXC seeing NMJ react before he looks over at MY, above; the effect is to make NMJ's response seem more obvious/natural, when in fact LXC is pretty baffled by it at the time.

"he became the Wen's underling and had been helping the tyrant at Nevernight!"—the language on 'became the Wen's underling' is actually different in episode 23 vs Empathy. In episode 23, you have 原来投靠了温氏; in Empathy, though, it's 原来是做了走狗. Note the 走狗 as earlier!

Okay, and now the big one: LXC giving NMJ reasons they should trust MY/not kill him. Empathy cuts most of this. It keeps that MY is the one who sent the map, but it drops: that the reason LXC is here today is because MY sent him a message; that MY was the one who schemed to get WRH's guard down, and then /killed him/; that MY was the one who saved LXC's life after CR burned; and that MY independently approached WRH to spy on him and has been sending LXC letters the whole time. /That's really not trivial. That's a lot to cut./

I wonder if this has any relation to the common idea that LXC did not in fact have a lot of very good reasons to trust JGY.

(Incidentally it's after the MY killed WRH reveal, in episode 23, that NMJ lowers his blade.)

...also. so. In episode 23 LXC asks MY, you know, didn't he already tell NMJ about all this (a question which makes a lot more sense in MDZS, where NMJ has already woken up before LXC joins them, but I just run with it), and MY says, you saw it ZWJ, even if I had he wouldn't have believed me. And NMJ—again it's kind of hard to capture in a still, but he pretty much reacts like he thinks that's ridiculous and MY is just making excuses/being manipulative?

And then of course that gets erased from the Empathy, as well as as just mentioned most of the reasons LXC actually gave. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, this also means it cuts what I'm pretty sure is the first on-screen use of A-Yao—it does show up later in the Empathy version of this scene, so I don't think that's hugely significant, but just as a note.

Then there's MY kneeling in preparation for apology, which is in both Empathy and episode 23. The Empathy cuts make it seem like he kneels pretty much right after NMJ lowers his blade, though, and we don't get to see him making the deliberate choice to step out if LXC's protection to kneel—again, I think it makes LXC seem more understanding of NMJ than he actually is here.

The apology proper is only in Empathy; honestly it mostly seems fairly reasonable to me, although it does mean you only hear LXC saying "But I believe, when he was doing such things, deep in his heart he must have been…" after the version that cuts most of his reasons for believing that. In terms of actual changes, I wonder if LXC reacted more quickly/strongly to the bit where it looks like NMJ is actually going to kill MY? It's definitely more understated than his previous reactions, and it would fit with the other changes made.

Last scene: the oath. At this point I think it's fairly well-known that NMJ looking at JGY, and LXC turning his head to look at them both, is only in Empathy—there's also, maybe?, a small change to the text; in episode 23, "Both God and people will be furious with us" is 天人共怒, but in Empathy it's 天人共戮. I say maybe because—on the one hand, the subs definitely use a different character, and it's in both the YT subs and the Netflix subs even though those aren't always 100% identical, but while I'm not usually checking the audio for this I did here because it's just the one character and the audio pretty much sounds the same to me? (ep 23) (Empathy) Could just be my ear, or a mistake on the subs' part or the audio part, who knows.

Overview

Looking at all the changes together, a few patterns emerge.

First, people who are doing damage who aren't JGY—the Wen, XY—tend to get minimized or erased from the narrative. Similarly and to some extent as a result, the harm caused by JGY is exaggerated; also similarly, the good that JGY does is also minimized or erased. Meanwhile, the damage done /to/ JGY is minimized—both the environment of abuse he suffered at Qinghe, and the physical harm done to him, which he usually recovers from much more quickly in Empathy (even when the attack itself is made stronger as, unusually, it is in the confrontation where NMJ kicks MY out of Qinghe). Finally MY is made more manipulative than he necessarily is; while I'm not saying he's never being manipulative, NMJ understands his expressions of weakness as /purely/ manipulative and inherently false, when in fact the weakness MY expresses is very real, however calculated, or not!, its expression may be.

Honestly—in this JGY who does way more harm and way less good than he actually does, who is more powerful and experiences less damage than he actually does, who is never actually weak but only acting that way to manipulate people? I feel like I'm seeing a lot of where popular takes on JGY come from.

#long meta #more than one tag could contain

[songofclarity]

I pity Xue Yang don't get me wrong I think he absolutely earned his ending, but he was a teenager (at least in the novel). A child that had not finished growing mentally when he committed his first crime and it's possible with the right kind of support he could have seen the error of what he did and came back from it but that's wishful thinking. He met the Jin clan who turned him into their personal killing machine, a text book psychopath. What a short pitiful life.

Hello, Anon! Since I wasn’t sure what inspired this ask, I've been mulling over it for awhile, because Xue Yang! Gotta admit, I enjoy him immensely as an antagonist even though I have a tangle of feelings and thoughts about him. So I’m going to try to iron some of them out since you brought him up!

Short version is I agree with you! Which makes me want to tread through why it is true. (And it’s a long tread so fair warning for under the cut!)

Because it was indeed a short, pitiful life. But then, he was perhaps the most pitiful character in the series. I'm hesitant to write any characters off as psychopaths, however, since this is fiction and that undermines his experiences and choices and the story he is meant to help tell.

Xue Yang was an an orphan growing up on the street. No parents, no money, no goals in life, no purpose in life. Already a very depressing start made worse by how incredibly self-aware Xue Yang is of his situation when he tells his story. Considering Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Xue Yang isn’t looking any higher than the floor.

And then he was seven years old when he was used and abused by adults in positions of power. No one came to save him like Jiang FengMian did Wei WuXian. He has no one like Meng Shi who wanted nice things for him or a woman like SiSi who looked out for him like they did for Jin GuangYao. Xue Yang had only himself, so it makes sense that he grew up to only care about and understand himself--and by the time he makes a “home” with Xiao XingChen and A-Qing, he’s too far gone to mend his ways without serious intervention.

An intervention, absolution, or redemption might all indeed be wishful thinking, if only because that is a work of labor and love. Either someone needs to find value in Xue Yang as a person worth redeeming or Xue Yang needs to find a sense of security and self-confidence in himself that precludes the need to do murder from some point onward. Xue Yang has been ruined and ruined himself to such a degree that surely any attempt to “save” him would come across as an insult, would make him feel inferior, and might just make him more aggressive.

Sadly, even though he did very horrible things, monstrous things, the tragedy is that he was encouraged and empowered and effectively trained to do them. Before he was picked up by the Lanling Jin Sect, he was just an angry delinquent. He bullied street vendors, destroyed property, made a name for himself with general violence, but there is no hint or insinuation that he killed people yet. That happened later. That happened after he met Jin GuangYao. And we know Xue Yang wasn’t thought irredeemable when he first joined the Jin because of Nie MingJue:

Nie MingJue frowned, “Xue Yang of Kuizhou?”

Jin GuangYao nodded. Xue Yang had been infamous ever since he was young. Wei WuXian clearly felt Nie MingJue’s brows knit even tighter. He spoke, “Why are you wasting your time with such a person?”

Jin GuangYao, “The LanlingJin Sect recruited him.”

He didn’t dare to protest any further. Excuse being that he needed to care for the guests, he scurried to the other side. Nie MingJue shook his head and turned around.

(Ch. 49, Exiled Rebel Scanlations)

Nie MingJue lets it drop. Nie MingJue is ready to see Xue Yang executed on the spot when his mass murder crimes come out, but not now. Xue Yang is a concern, but so was Jin GuangYao. Nie MingJue is trying to big-brother Jin GuangYao into following the right path, so if the Jin recruited Xue Yang, maybe he, too, is on a better path now. Nie MingJue will realize this isn’t true later, and he’ll pay with his life for being the only one who tries to protect the common folk, which includes all the other innocent Xue Yangs out there who are poor and at risk to harm, but I digress.

Xue Yang still got what was coming to him, but it really was just the pitiful end to a pitiful life. He was treated like a dog, grew up to be feral, was not properly retrained, and then had to be put down. Did he have choices in the matter? Technically yes, but then he’s a still child when the Jin begin to use him.

Jin GuangYao, "Will you be free the next few days?"

Xue Yang, "Won’t I have to do it no matter what?" (Ch. 118)

Xue Yang isn’t unaware of his position on the hierarchy.

He was used by Chang Cian, because there are no consequences for abusing and maiming orphans. There’s some textbook psychology for little Xue Yang from Piaget and Erikson that I won’t get into, but the fact is an expectation as simple as ‘I do a task and get rewarded for the task’ resulted in him being beaten and maimed does a lot of distortion to both expectations in life and self-confidence.

He was used by Jin GuangShan, because he grew into a defensive and spiteful teenager whom people always looked down upon. He’s gone feral, but give a dog a warm bed, clean clothes, protection, and a new toy called the Stygian Tiger Seal to play with, and he won't bite the hand that feeds him.

He can be trained to bite everyone else, too, and definitely he wants to. He’s so quick to feel slighted, to wanting to avenge himself, that even Jin GuangYao, the master of self-pity, takes notice, such as when Xue Yang first meets Xiao XingChen and Song Lan:

Jin GuangYao mused, "They didn’t really do much to you, so why the anger?"

Xue Yang spat, "I find these fake, conceited people the absolute most disgusting. That Xiao XingChen was clearly not even that much older than me, poking his nose into other people’s business—annoying. And he started giving me a lecture. And that Song guy.” He sneered, “I only brushed past his arm, so what was with that look he gave me? Sooner or later, I’ll dig out his eyes and shatter his heart. Let’s see what he’ll do when that happens." (Ch. 118)

This might have grown from the seven year old who was minding his own business, promised candy for a task, and then grievously injured. This is aggressive self-defense. This is ‘I will hurt them before they hurt me.’ He’s looking for threats. Because did he know Chang Cian or the man who received the letter were going to hurt him? No. And he’s making sure no one hurts him ever again.

And yet.

He was used by Jin GuangYao, who understood Xue Yang the best as they walked side-by-side, as Jin GuangYao showed him kindness, gave him advice, offered him everything. Then once Jin GuangYao got what he wanted out of him, once what Jin GuangYao had helped make Xue Yang into was more a liability than a boom, Jin GuangYao told the cultivation world he was getting rid of him.

We aren't told what happened next, but I do have to wonder about the timeline. Xue Yang helped Jin GuangYao murder Jin GuangShan, Jin GuangYao announced to the cultivation world he was going to get rid of Xue Yang, then the next we hear about Xue Yang is that he is found, half-dead, on the side of the road by Xiao XingChen. Was Xue Yang one of Jin GuangYao's victims who got away? I wouldn’t be surprised since it fits Jin GuangYao’s methods, but that Xue Yang doesn’t storm the gates in revenge leaves room for doubt. But then a dog that has been severely beaten would know to stay away until he’s recovered, and we know Xue Yang, after he is found by Xiao XingChen, becomes distracted by this new domestic situation instead.

I also want to point out Xue Yang’s courtesy name: Xue Chengmei. I admit i don’t know the full background of when or how these Chinese names are given, but my current assumption is it was given to him by the Jin. The translations I’ve seen include "to help fulfil the wishes of others" (Exiled Rebels Scanlations) and also "help others do good deeds" (from the modao-zushi fandom wiki).

As Jin GuangYao was the one to bring him in, it’s possible that he was the one to explicitly name him. And this, to me, presents Xue Yang in the most pitiful light: Xue Yang was Jin GuangYao’s second pearl to his father. Jin GuangShan wanted a demonic cultivator and Jin GuangYao found what was needed to please him, to try to win him over. Xue Yang was not brought and kept at Koi Tower for self-improvement or self-growth. He was brought in as a useful tool. He was brought in so Jin GuangYao’s wishes could be fulfilled.

So Xue Yang's life is something that is meant to be used by others. It's no wonder he goes absolutely feral and delights in the macabre and abuse of others -- because physical power, the power to hurt, is tthe only power he understands. By the time he leaves Koi Tower he's a rabid dog with no place to belong, beaten once again by a trusted master, and harboring feelings of resentment and hatred in his inferiority. So when Xiao XingChen arrives and helps him, it’s another nice warm bed, new clothes, and new toys to play with in the form of Xiao XingChen and A-Qing's blindness.

But what of interventions? Of teaching him to do better? Remember that Nie MingJue tries to guide Jin GuangYao with good advice at their first meeting, and Xiao XingChen also tries to guide Xue Yang, by advising Jin GuangYao, at their first meeting:

Right after, [Xiao XingChen] turned his gaze towards Xue Yang, "However, even if he’s still at a young age, as he has taken a seat amongst Koi Tower’s guest cultivators, it’s still best if he learns restraint. After all, the LanlingJin Sect is one of the most prestigious sects. It needs to lead by example in many aspects." (Ch. 118)

The Lanling Jin Sect needs to lead by example -- but they don’t. Jin GuangYao has the power to be a good person, but he won’t. And Xue Yang pays for it. Everyone at Yi City suffers for it. Xue Yang doesn’t learn restraint and Jin GuangYao mirrors back what Xue Yang wants to see: someone like him. Jin GuangYao humored his macabre practical jokes. They sentenced innocent people to die together, showed their true faces to each other, and committed a most horrific fratricide together. Xue Yang was having fun, he was feeling powerful, and he didn’t feel like he had to stop when he met Xiao XingChen, whom he hated at first horsewhip-lash. Xiao XingChen can’t look down on him if Xiao XingChen is brought down to his level. It’s only a human tongue in that tea. It’s only Shuanghua in some dude’s chest. It’s hilarious, Xiao XingChen, you should see your face!

It’s nothing more than a child playing with a toy. Of course Xue Yang would end up destroying the one good thing he accidentally stumbled upon. Jin GuangYao had showed him kindness too, and looked how that turned. No one had ever done something out of charity and kindness for him, so how was he supposed to recognize it for what it was? The answer is he couldn’t, it was impossible, and then he spent the next ~7 years trying to get Xiao XingChen back and still it was for all the wrong reasons. Does he hate? Does he want? Is it love? Is it spite?

But Xiao XingChen had bandaged his wounds when no one else had. Xiao XingChen had given him the candy no one else had.

The last piece of candy Xue Yang held onto for all those years without eating...

A short, pitiful life indeed.

#asked from above #anon #xue yang #mdzs thoughts #i like xue yang the normal amount aha ha #i say as i write a dissertation about him #and admire pictures of him in the tags #and check out his actor's next cdrama #he's so awful but he's so pitiful #i love how shamelessly vicious and feral he is though #are 99% of problems rooted in the existence of the jin? maybe lol #this might be too xy apologetic but it's a starting point

[veliseraptor]

I'm interested in your thoughts about the different way the show vs the novel cuts the timeline, and specifically in terms of how Jin Guangyao is framed. With the show, we're first introduced to Meng Yao as a young man making heart eyes at Zewu-jun and there's a very slow build up of suspicion over time, which allows viewers to get to know and like him more at first before...*ahem*... putting the villain hat on him. In the novel on the other hand (assuming I'm remembering this correctly), we're basically presented with Jin Guangyao as the antagonist almost from the beginning, setting him up for the reader's suspicion and dislike. On the other hand, there's a much more nuanced portrayal of his crimes (e.g. he's not responsible for Every Bad Thing Ever like in Untamed) and the reasons behind them, and an even more clear parallel with WWX as the protagonist. What are your thoughts?

Ohhh this is a super interesting ask and I actually found it an interesting counter to the prevailing Jin Guangyao narrative about his framing in the drama, which holds that he is straightforwardly being painted as The Villain, and while I don't think that's incorrect I do think in some ways it overstates its point. however, I actually think that something specifically about narrative framing (as in, not taking any content changes in mind) here might, perhaps unintuitively, contribute to why the Jin Guangyao of the novel is a more sympathetic figure than The Untamed (tries to) make him.

(once again I came out of CQL like Jin Guangyao Made Many Valid Points, Was If Not Right At Least 75% Justified so like. I actually don't think The Untamed was as good at making Jin Guangyao a Straight Up Villain as it was trying to be. I have thoughts about Zhu Zanjin actively acting against script and how you can feel him pulling against the prevailing narrative and I have thoughts about how that actually interacts very nicely with the way Jin Guangyao in every version of the story is pulling against a prevailing narrative that wants to relegate him to the margins in one way or another. but that's a major sidebar.)

holy hell I wrote an essay so putting the rest of this under a read more.

The point is that I think there's a few things happening here - I will note, first of all, that I don't think we actually are introduced to Jin Guangyao as a villain in MDZS. I believe the first mentions we get of him are actually fairly positive. I went back and checked, and he's mentioned a couple times early on just to note his position as Chief Cultivator (in pretty neutral to positive terms), then identified as the person who gave Jin Ling Fairy, and a few other times including the explanation that he executed Xue Yang to "show that things were going to be different." Pretty shortly after that is the scene where Wei Wuxian finds the kids playing Sunshot Campaign to see how Jin Guangyao is portrayed there (because that's a solid proxy for perception more broadly) and it's pretty complimentary!

"In these types of games, the role of the now-grand-beyond-measure Chief Cultivator, Lianfang-zun, was naturally very popular. Though he had come from a background that most people found too embarrassing to even mention, it was for this very reason that they sighed in admiration over how he'd succeeded in climbing to the top of the cultivation world. [...] He fully deserved the title, and could even be considered a legend of his time. If Wei Wuxian had been playing this game, he also would have wanted to try being Jin Guangyao." (Dew, Part 5)

I do think that's worth remembering, that it's not an immediate jump into "Jin Guangyao bad"; it happens pretty fast but not immediately.

However, it is true that by the time we actually meet Jin Guangyao on page he is under pretty heavy suspicion, and pretty shortly after that is the Empathy sequence, which involves a lot of heavy judgment on Wei Wuxian's part (a very unbiased narrator! of course!) of Jin Guangyao's badness. though that's also the sequence that reveals Jin Guangyao's involvement in saving Lan Xichen, his maltreatment by cultivators in general and Nie Mingjue in particular. So it's...complicated.

But in general, this kind of arc (starting with a character who seems fishy/suspicious or even evil, gradually revealing later on the more sympathetic aspects and drawing a fuller, more nuanced picture of them that's very far from a blanket condemnation and also gets a lot of sympathy from the narrative) is very characteristic of MXTX. She does it all the time, in all three of her books, with pretty much all her antagonists.

(SPOILERS FOLLOW: Shen Qingqiu in SVSSS starts out as a lecherous scum villain who deserves his horrible death and ends as a decidedly tragic and fairly miserable figure that even his #1 hater feels pity for, Tianlang-jun in same is an all-powerful demon lord, terror of the cultivation world -- and he was wrongly accused because the Old Palace Master coveted Su Xiyan. Xue Yang is introduced as a mass murderer and closes as a hand clutching a treasured candy. Jun Wu in TGCF receives the bamboo hat after Xie Lian's beaten him in a truly remarkable gesture of compassion.

Wei Wuxian himself, who is introduced in the first lines of the novel as a terrible evil that has been defeated - this one gets quickly overturned but the fact that it begins there is still significant. I could keep going.)

and while I feel like that's led to some problems in the discourse (namely, people make up their mind about who Jin Guangyao is right off the bat and then dismiss anything that doesn't suit that initial assumption as either false or irrelevant), I also think it's a pretty compelling way to lay out her characters, and does some very interesting things in terms of...challenging the reader to be willing to overwrite some of those early assumptions, being willing to make that change in how they assess a character (or person). I mean, that's a big part of the plot of SVSSS, actually: many of the problems are caused by Shen Qingqiu's unwillingness or inability to see that Luo Binghe is not the character he knew him as from PIDW - that Luo Binghe has changed because of Shen Yuan's decisions. The misunderstandings after Luo Binghe's plunge into the Abyss stem, in a lot of ways, from Shen Qingqiu continuing to assume that Luo Binghe is thinking and acting exactly as his counterpart would, instead of looking at the person who is actually in front of him.

So too, I think the reader is meant to do those same kinds of reassessments in MDZS as character details are parceled out. Notably, the information about Sisi and the Guanyin Temple statue is only revealed after Jin Guangyao is already dead. Everything has already happened, so why put that information in the text? It's one more signpost that says you thought you knew everything but there's still more to complicate the picture and make this even more of a tragedy. You see the same thing with Jiang Cheng and the golden core reveal at the very end - everything has already happened, the great confrontation has already gone down, but here's one more thing. Maybe it doesn't change anything in terms of the narrative, but it's there, it's important.

Now, the problem comes, I think, when people are unwilling to flex on that initial unfavorable impression, and I feel like particularly right now in general a lot of people are unwilling to...change their minds? on things? or to admit they were wrong or maybe making a judgment prematurely? And most obviously this is an issue irl all over the place but I think it happens in fiction, too. The irony here is, of course, that it's replicating exactly how cultivation society in-text responds to Jin Guangyao, namely by taking one thing about him and deciding that says everything about him, regardless of what he does.

To turn to CQL, now...I'm going to be talking about narrative structure from an Anglophone perspective because that's what I know, and that's the part of fandom I primarily engage with, recognizing that what I'm going to say about story patterns may not hold true in Chinese literature; I've read too little of it to say.

I actually think it's interesting that I actually think, while CQL is on the face of it presenting a more sympathetic look at Jin Guangyao to begin with, by putting it in a linear order where the viewer more or less knows what's going on with him through the course of the whole story in chronological order is actually in some ways a villain edit in and of itself without the extra dumping of all the bad things ever being his fault. I say that because that's actually, as a narrative arc, a very familiar one in terms of the path it follows. "Innocent young man falls into villainy" is a classic villain creation trope - and while often it can make for a sympathetic villain it is very much a story that arcs from good > bad > dead.

When it's set up in that linear sort of way, aligned with that sort of familiar path, the reader (viewer) is almost set up to expect what comes; as soon as episode 10 rolls around and Jin Guangyao does something questionable, there's an easy and immediate jump to "oh, so he's going to be one of those" and from there everything he does must be, by the logic of that familiar story, part of that path. He can't get better from there; that's not how it works. He can have a redemptive moment before death, perhaps, but overall once that downward arc begins, the expectation isn't that it'll reverse, and it's a challenge to convince people not to view the rest of the character's story - and potentially back-read into their previous actions - in a suspicious light at best or an actively hostile one at worst.

(Interestingly, I have thoughts/feelings on the way that Wei Wuxian's arc interacts with that sort of story path, which is to say as I've talked about before Wei Wuxian's first life is classic villain origin story. "A smart, clever young man with a healthy dose of hubris acquires sinister powers, gradually gets more unstable and separated from society, and ultimately goes full villain" is the basic outline of Wei Wuxian's story before his resurrection, and that is, I want to emphasize, a villain story. Obviously it doesn't end up framed that way, but viewed from outside that's what it is. The fact that he's extricated from it and gets another chance doesn't actually unwrite that - it gives him another chance.)

So CQL!Jin Guangyao might start out as a more sympathetic-seeming figure than MDZS!Jin Guangyao does, but by virtue of the linearity of his arc on screen (following a familiar narrative path to an inevitable end), I think he's pre-set up to be intractably cast in the villain role, where MDZS!Jin Guangyao, because the reveals of information about him are non-linear, wobbles more. Because the reader doesn't have all the information it (potentially) forestalls making final judgment, or at least calls for a reexamination of judgment. That interrupted arc, with its side trips and detours and glimpses of another story in which Jin Guangyao could've been the protagonist (the brothel flashback occurs to me), makes it potentially a little less easy to mark Jin Guangyao in the villain box and keep him there for forty episodes.

I would say, in general, that the novel encourages a more sympathetic read of Jin Guangyao. But I do think what you've noted here is worth remembering: CQL doesn't present him as a villain or even as sketchy from the start, and the difference is clear in the form of two characters who project "I'm a bad person!" in every scene they're in from the beginning: Wen Ruohan, and to a lesser extent Jin Guangshan.

#conversating #flamingwell #jin guangyao #lise does meta #the sad queer cultivators show #thanks for giving me the opportunity to spend FAR too long writing this and looking up quotes and shit #much appreciated way to spend my afternoon #instead of working